The State of Puget Bench (Q1 2026)

What is Puget Bench?

While there are plenty of gaming and synthetic benchmarks that offer general insights into how different hardware performs, there are surprisingly few that are designed to test professional workflows like content creation. That’s where Puget Bench comes in. Puget Bench is a suite of performance benchmarks developed by Puget Systems, designed to evaluate hardware using the same real-world creative applications professionals use every day.

Puget Bench began as a way to facilitate our internal testing, but over the years, it has evolved into a solution that now helps thousands of users, many reviewers and press outlets, and even hardware manufacturers such as Intel and AMD. We designed and expanded it combining our knowledge of computer hardware and creative workloads (such as video editing, motion graphics, and photography) into a series of tests, the results of which help guide users in making the most informed workstation purchasing decisions possible.

As of the beginning of 2026, the Puget Bench for Creators suite includes benchmarks for the following applications:

• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Adobe After Effects
• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Lightroom Classic
• Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve

What sets Puget Bench apart is that it runs directly on top of the application being tested. Instead of approximating workloads using synthetic methods, it uses real projects and media files within the software. This gives results that accurately reflect how a given system will perform in production, including improvements or degradation due to factors like software or driver updates.

Results from our Puget Bench are a core feature in many of the hardware articles we publish. The benchmarks are free for personal use – available for anyone to download and run on their own system – with paid licenses available for commercial purposes or for those looking for more advanced features like CLI automation, local logging, and beta access.

Major Puget Bench Updates in 2025

2025 was a significant year for Puget Bench, marked by several major updates and improvements. Over the last year, our milestones included:

Launch of Puget Bench for After Effects 1.0 (April 2025)

After extensive development, Puget Bench for After Effects launched in the full “1.0” state, meaning that it was suitable for public use and that the tests/scoring should be stable for at least a few years (barring major application changes by Adobe).

Overhaul of the Puget Bench Public Results Database (April 2025)

Our database of results currently contains approximately 250,000 entries, and our new result analysis pages make it easier than ever to utilize all that data. This includes the ability to easily compare different CPUs and GPUs, as well as a quick overview of the top CPUs and GPUs for Premiere Pro, Photoshop, DaVinci Resolve, and other applications in our suite. Lastly, new our analysis tools can give you insights on how your system compares to a modern workstation when you run the benchmark, and how it performs relative to other systems with the same CPU or GPU; here is an example of that in action.

Launch of Puget Bench for Lightroom Classic 1.0 (November 2025)

The “1.0” release of Puget Bench for Lightroom Classic moves this test from beta to full release, and marks the last of our legacy benchmarks to move into the new launcher. Alongside an update to the tested camera formats, a range of AI-based tests were added – including Select Sky/Subject, Reflection Removal, Denoise, Enhance Details, and Super Resolution. Full information on the new tests and methodology is available in Puget Bench for Lightroom Classic 1.0 Released!

Puget Bench for Creators Fall Feature Pass (December 2025)

The Fall Feature Pass was a pure quality-of-life update. It didn’t alter any of the benchmarks, tests, or scoring, but included several features that made running the benchmarks easier, more transparent, and more reliable. Full details are available in Puget Bench for Creators Fall Feature Pass Released!

Public Benchmark Uploads

Since we first allowed the public to download and run our benchmarks in 2020, adoption has been steadily increasing. Currently, we average around 5,500 new result profiles uploaded to our database every month. Around a third of those are gathered from the benchmarking and testing of the workstations we manufacture here at Puget Systems, which are flagged with a special designator since we know that they are not overclocked or thermally throttled. The majority of results, however, come from the public with an incredibly diverse range of system configurations.

The popularity of each benchmark is closely tied to its length in a “1.0” state, with Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and DaVinci Resolve being the most popular. However, the full release of Puget Bench for After Effects in early 2025 has skyrocketed the use of that benchmark, and we are already seeing an even greater percentage uplift in results for Lightroom Classic since its launch in November.

As of January 2026, we have nearly 250,000 benchmark profiles in our database that cover more than 70,000 different combinations of hardware, software, drivers, and BIOS. This provides a massive wealth of data that we are only starting to utilize, and we have some ambitious plans for 2026 to make browsing and analyzing that data easier for everyone!

Puget Bench Press Usage

In addition to the general public, one of the key demographics for our benchmarks is members of the press, who use them to evaluate the performance of a range of hardware. We have issued numerous press licenses over the years, and the long-term adoption rate of Puget Bench has been extremely high.

We recently completed a project to investigate the use of Puget Bench in hardware reviews and compiled a list of articles and videos that utilized one or more of our benchmarks in 2025. These include smaller, targeted press outlets, as well as larger ones like Linus Tech Tips, Gamers Nexus, The Tech Chap, Venom’s Tech, Hardware Unboxed, Igor’s Lab, Forbes, Tech Radar, The Verge, Tom’s Hardware, and more:

If you are aware of a reviewer who uses our benchmarks and is not on the list above, please let us know so we can provide them with a press license!

Hardware Launches Utilizing Puget Bench

In addition to third-party reviews, several hardware manufacturers have incorporated our benchmarks into their product launches. The most recent examples of this are:

AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D Announcement at CES 2025

As part of the on-stage announcement of the AMD Ryzen™ 9 9950X3D at CES 2025, Puget Bench for DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, and Photoshop were used to compare performance against the previous generation AMD Ryzen™ 9 7950X3D and the Intel Core™ Ultra 9 285K.

Performance data and messaging derived from Puget Bench results can also be found on the landing pages or launch slide decks for many of AMD’s products, including the AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 9000WX processors and the recently announced AMD Ryzen™ 9850X3D.

Intel Core Ultra Desktop Processors Launch Briefing

Alongside the launch of the Intel Core Ultra Desktop Processors, Intel provided a PDF highlighting the new technology and examples of performance for gaming and productivity workflows. Results from Puget Bench for Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, and Lightroom Classic were used in multiple instances to highlight performance compared to the competition.

What is coming in 2026?

2025 was a big year for Puget Bench, marked by multiple benchmark launches alongside several application and web updates. But we aren’t done yet, and have big plans for 2026! While release times can get thrown off by breakout workflows or changes made by ISVs like Adobe and Blackmagic that may require us to shift priorities, our major initiatives for 2026 include:

Public Release of Puget Bench for Premiere Pro 2.0

When Adobe decided to block the ability to export to HEVC via scripting in mid-2025, we took that as an opportunity to overhaul our Premiere Pro benchmark. That process has been underway through the second half of 2025, with beta builds being available for licensed users to try out. We are nearing the completion of this process, and expect the public release to occur sometime in February of 2026.

Among other improvements, this update will include the addition of new codecs for processing and exporting, revamped GPU Effects tests, 4x multistream tests, and new “Real World” LongGOP and Intraframe projects.

Public Release of Puget Bench for DaVinci Resolve 2.0

Spurred by the Premiere Pro benchmark update, we are also releasing an overhaul for our DaVinci Resolve benchmark. This will include similar improvements, such as the addition of new codecs for processing and exporting, 4x multistream tests, and new “Real World” LongGOP and Intraframe projects. In addition, we are adding ProRes export tests and updating the AI tests for Face Refinement v2, Depth Map v2, and Magic Mask v2.

Puget Bench for Unreal Engine

In addition to maintaining and improving our existing benchmarks, we plan to add new benchmarks for Unreal Engine. These benchmarks will be specifically tailored for users working inside the Unreal Engine Editor for workflows such as game development, virtual production, and real-time visualization. Due to the wide and varied use of Unreal Engine across multiple industries, this is a major undertaking. We are hoping for a full “1.0” release by the end of the year, but at worst we should have a public beta available.

Puget Bench Web Analysis Updates

To complement these benchmark updates and additions, we also have several improvements planned for the Puget Bench website, particularly when examining your benchmark results or comparing them with the hundreds of thousands of entries in our public database. The exact details and timelines are not yet finalized, but may include features such as the ability to organize and manage your uploaded results, an improved ability to compare your results to others in the database, and additional tools to compare different hardware configurations, helping you decide which upgrades are worth the investment.

Conclusion

All in all, 2025 was an excellent year for Puget Bench. We not only released a number of updates and web features, but growth in the usage of our benchmarks among end users and the press also increased greatly. 2026 already looks to be even better, and we are excited to share everything we are working on!

If you want to stay informed of upcoming changes to Puget Bench, you can sign up for our newsletter below:

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